


Keep Them Burning

by CallicoKitten



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crime Families, Multi, Organized Crime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 12:23:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallicoKitten/pseuds/CallicoKitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olympus City is the most powerful in the world and everyone knows it's run by the three Kronos brothers.</p><p>A collection of tales set around this 'verse.</p><p>1. some say it's a blessing, some say it's a curse. (Hades/Persephone)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Them Burning

**Author's Note:**

> Title for the collection from Gods and Monsters by I Am Kloot, title for this story from My Boy Build Coffins (obvious song choice is obvious)
> 
> Anyway, a little about this 'verse, it's been done before, I'm sure, the greek and norse pantheons as rival crime families (if it hasn't it totally should be) it's a verse i've been working on for a long time, I used to role play it with my friends (until we sort of drifted apart) and I'll be mostly putting up unconnected snippets/drabbles like this.
> 
> Feedback would be _awesome_! Enjoy (I hope)
> 
> Yes, Hades name is Hadyn.

_There is a little flower shop on Elysian Road, sells the best and brightest bunches in the whole city. Spring, Summer, Autumn, it's doors are open wide but in the winter months the shutters are closed, barred, barricaded. Some people say its because the flowers die in winter so how can they be sold? But there are greenhouses and heat lamps and artificial sunlight so there really is no excuse. There is a tale some people spin of the flower shop owners daughter and the eldest son of Dimitri Kronos, that strange dark boy who builds coffins and funeral pyres._

\-----

She meets him first when she's just a child, that ghostly boy.

Her mama tells her to be on her best behaviour, this customer is special. She's dressed in her Sunday best, her long dark hair caught up in green ribbons, mama even lets her wear a little make up. 

The man is tall with glittering eyes that make Persephone flinch away when he turns them on her and smirks like the wolf from her nightmares. Three boys trail after him. The youngest boisterous, bicker loudly; both are light skinned, bright eyed, cheeks flushed from exertion, hair that falls somewhere between summer and autumn. The oldest stands stoically beside his father dressed all in black. His skin is chalky white, his hair a glossy raven black but it is his eyes that draw her in; deep blue of cavernous pools, of the midnight sky. 

"Go and play, Persephone," her mama says. 

Persephone has half a mind to ask the boys if they would like to join her, even if they are a little older, but he voice is always shaky when she meets new people and mama says to only speak when spoken to so she nods and scampers off. She loses herself in a game of fairies and wood elves in the little swathe of green beside her mama's shop and when she looks up the strange, dark boy is watching her.

She will be spend many hours, many days, trying to recall the look she saw in those unfathomable depths. Perhaps it was longing, longing for the simple joy and innocence of her world, perhaps it was sorrow. Perhaps it was simply the vacant look of eyes that have seen too much they don't understand, or too much they do. Perhaps, she thinks, he knew. Way back then when he was an awkwardly long limbed child and she still lived in a world of pixie dust. Perhaps he knew.

\-----

The second time she meets him she is walking home from school, her skirt fluttering in the autumn gust. 

She is no longer a little girl of six, but a young woman of twelve, and yes, she understands that twelve is still young but she is wise beyond her years. Her hair is still long but now it falls freely down her back in a cascade of soft ringlets, the wide eyed innocence childhood afforded her has all but dissipated. She will be a pretty girl her mama says, with coffee-cream skin and eyes of green and gold but Persephone is old enough to know that looks are not the only thing she needs in this world.

She pauses when she sees him, reclining against the wall of an alleyway, cigarette held loosely between his elegant fingers. He has grown in to his long limbs, no longer has an air of awkward self consciousness clinging to him. He is tall and lithe, his features sharp. His skin is still a few shades too pale to be healthy, he is still dressed all in black; spray on jeans and a leather jacket. Adolescence seems to suit him, he has the grace of musician or perhaps an artist, a poet, a writer, the kind of writer that can make your heart ache with a single well placed word. His father has visited the shop often since that first time, he buys red roses and lilies but his sons haven't joined him since.

"My mama says cigarettes will kill you," she says, without quite knowing why.

The boy shutters open one lazy blue eye, "Maybe that's the idea." He drawls, flicking the cigarette away with practised ease. He appraises her and Persephone resists the urge to wriggle under his cool blue gaze, she holds her head high. "You're the flower shop owner's girl, yes?" 

"Persephone." 

He nods, "Persephone. That's pretty."  
She nods her thanks, "And you?"

He quirks an eyebrow, "Didn't your mother tell you never to speak to strangers?" And there is an undercurrent to his tone, almost playful, the makes her shiver.

"If you give me your name we will no longer be strangers." 

His lips curl into a smirk, " _Good,_ " he purrs, studying her carefully. "Hadyn," he offers. 

"Hadyn," she repeats, she likes the way it feels on her tongue. "What does it mean?"

Hadyn sniggers, takes a few steps towards her. "Do you know who my father is, Persephone?"

Everyone knows who Dimitri Kronos is so she simply stares at him. "Does it matter who your father is?"

He smiles again, laughs a little and shakes his head. "Yes," he answers. He strides past her and she spins to watch him walk across to a dark motorbike parked at the edge of road. He swings himself on to it and the motor purrs to life, "It means heathen." He says before he pulls away from the curb.

\-----

"Stay away from that boy, Persephone," her mama pleads. "Their family is no good."

"You sell his father flowers," Persephone points out.

"I do what I have to," mama says. "Please, Sephy."

Persephone sighs.

Persephone nods.

\-----

She is a few months shy of twenty-one when it happens, when he comes for her.

His father is dead and gone, the town is no longer run by Dimitri Kronos but by his sons, Zeus and Peeter, and Hadyn she assumes. Her mother's flower shop is now a chain, but its still just her and mama, the way it's always been. She knows a lot more now, she knows her mother is not just a flower shop owner. She is no longer an innocent girl, if she ever was.

It happens in their garden, a few miles out of town. It's their secret, their little slice of Eden hidden away up here between the motorways and farmer's fields. She's harvesting lilies and humming under the sunset sky, the perfumed scent of flowers hanging heavily in the air. 

When he comes, like a demon drawn up from hell, she's almost expecting it. Everyone knows about the Kronos brothers, everyone knows about Hadyn's bitterness, about his lonely nature. Where his brothers have countless women and children he has none, it has always given Persephone a certain misguided thrill. Maybe he thinks of her.

"Persephone." His voice is low and whiskey-smooth. She does not need to turn to know who it is even though they haven't met for years.

"Hadyn," she keeps her voice carefully steady as she turns, still clutching a bunch of white flowers. He has grown even taller, if it is at all possible, and lither too, here and there she sees a swathe of dark ink on his ghostly pale skin. The pistol in his hands glitters strangely in the twilight. 

"You have grown up beautifully," he says, a cruel smirk on his handsome face.

Persephone eyes the pistol but she will not give him the satisfaction of showing her unease, if this is what the world has done to Hadyn Kronos then she has nothing but sorrow for him. "Thank you," she says in a measured tone, drawing the lilies up to her chest.  
He stares at her for a while and she wishes she could see the look in his eyes. "If you are going to shoot me at least tell me why." She says and he starts, blinks.

"I wasn't-" he begins, his voice a little softer but then he shakes his head. "I'm not going to shoot you, Persephone."

She lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "What do you want, Hadyn?"

"Come with me." He says firmly, gesturing with the pistol. "Come with me now."

She swallows, "And if I don't?"

He raises the pistol slightly and grins, the kind of grin that makes her think about teeth at her throat, tearing. It doesn't suit him but she nods her assent because the last thing she wants is for her mother to find her cold and limp among their precious flowers.

\-----

He takes to his home, leads her through the funeral parlour out front. 

The house is big and dark and lonely. The basement door is locked, a great black dog asleep in front of it. He leads her up to a lavishly furnished room, bids her to sit on the bed. "What do you want from me?" She asks as she sits back on the soft mattress.

Hadyn glances at her, "I want you as my wife."

Persephone almost scoffs, "This is not a very convincing courtship."

She thinks he bites back a grin but its gone in an instant and he rearranges his features into something neutral. "So?"

She stares at him, "So what?"

He rolls his eyes, "Do you consent?"

This time she does scoff, "You're a strange piece of work, my mama warned me off you."

He grits his teeth, "Is that a no?"

She cocks her head, "That depends, what will you do if it is?" She eyes him nervously. She knows that if he tries anything she will not be able to fight him off and in this cold, dark house she knows there will be no one to save her. She finds herself wondering whether Hadyn grew up here in this dark, lavish place. A world away from the little flat above her mother's shop. 

"I will keep you here until you say yes." He says with a sickening immediacy.

"You are a child," she says scornfully. "A spoilt child."

At this Hadyn chuckles, a deep rumble that makes her think of earthquakes and rockslides. "You know nothing." He says, backing out of the room.

"My mother will look for me," she warns, panic rising. "She will find me! She will kill you if you touch me!"

He laughs again, "Maybe that's the idea."

\-----

She awakes to the sound of raised voices. The sheets are soft and dark and smell musky. She wipes away the tears that have escaped during the night and sits up. The room is empty but for an ornate bookshelf filled with the kind of literature Persephone had always imagined Hadyn reading, a cigarette dangling from him lips in a little coffee shop somewhere. Maybe he could have, had his father been anyone else. There's a television against one wall, big and fancy and from what she can tell unused before he got here.

"You have to let her go," someone says out in the hallway.

" _Why?_ " Hadyn snaps. "You get to take whatever woman takes your fancy, brother, why do. _I_ get nothing?" 

She assumes it is Zeus, Peeter is often away so Zeus it must be. 

"You have the house, brother." Zeus says, his voice a deep rumble.

Persephone feels light headed, she has been here three days already, watching the hunt for her unfold on the flat screen tv Hadyn has given her. She hasn't eaten all that time, her weak form of protest against the man who holds her. On the bedside table sits a bowl of pomegranate seeds, her favourite, left there by some lackey. She's given up wondering how Hadyn knew she loved them.

Hadyn snorts, "The house? This house is a tomb, brother. I never wanted it."

"Then why did you accept it?" Zeus growls.

"Because you wanted me to," Hadyn says stiffly. "And I know what becomes of those on your bad side, brother mine."

"I would _never_ ," Zeus protests. "You are family!"

"So was father."

She hears Zeus sigh, "That man didn't deserve to live. You know that better than anyone." There's a pause and then: "Give back the girl, Hadyn. Her mother can be dangerous. She's worked for father in the past."

"No." Hadyn says stubbornly. "She is the only one I..."

"You could have anyone."

"I don't want anyone."

Zeus sighs again, "Brother, _please_ see reason. You can't keep her here against her will. She is a human being, it isn't fair on here. Plus it's illegal."

"Since when did you hold such a high regard for the law?"

"Since my brother started kidnapping innocent girls!"

There is a sound like a crash, the breaking of glass, and Zeus swears loudly. " _Hadyn._ " he growls. "Let me speak to her."

"Fine," Hadyn spits. "She's in my old room."

Persephone sighs, her eyes stray to the bowl of pomegranates.

\-----

If she didn't know they were related she never would have guessed. 

Where Hadyn is tall and lithe and dark his brother is stocky, still tall but well-built. His hair is a rich honey-blond, he smiles, "You look like your mother." 

She glares, "Let me go." 

He chuckles, "You sound like her too." He pulls up a chair to the side of the bed and drops himself down in to it, leaning forwards and steepling his fingers under his chin, "Do you know who I am?"   
Persephone scoffs and Zeus grins again, obviously taking that as answer enough. "My brother tells me you don't want to be his." 

"He kidnapped me at gunpoint and is currently holding me against my will and _you_ expect me to fall head over heels with him?"

Zeus winces, "Well, my brother always has had a flair for the dramatics." He admits. "He's lonely. Not many have done right by him."

Persephone quirks an eyebrow, "Perhaps he'd have better luck in love if he didn't begin his courtships with abduction."

Zeus smiles, "I can see why he likes you." He flexes his fingers and Persephone recalls the tales she's heard of the things Zeus has done with only his hands. "I could make you stay, you know. Only ones who know you're here are me, my brother and my son. No one need know. You'd just be another casualty of the gang war." 

"You could," Persephone agrees. "But you won't. I know you won't. You don't want to displease my mother."

"I don't want to displease my brother either."

"Who are you more afraid of?" She counters.

Zeus sighs, "I need my brother happy if I want to keep my power. But if I upset your mother then..." He trails off. "I am in a bit of a bind here." He says, smiling weakly. 

Persephone sat up straighter, "So let me go. Let your brother throw his little tantrum."

Zeus is watching her carefully, "If he has asked your permission, would you have gone with him?" 

Persephone's resolve falters. She thinks back to the boy with the sad eyes, to the boy with the motorbike. "Perhaps."

"Then why not stay?"

She laughs, "How hard is it for you to understand? I don't want to be here. If a woman kidnapped you, locked you in a room and asked you to marry her would you say yes?"

Zeus whistled, "That'd be one extraordinary women but yes, I see your point." He sits back, regards her. "Has he touched you?"

"No."

Zeus snorts and murmurs something that Persephone thinks might be _wimp_ , she wonders whether she could hit him and still gain her freedom. Zeus stretches and she eyes the pistol at his belt. Probably not then. "He hasn't touched me. No one knows I'm here. If you let me go no one will know."

He nods, considers it, "How about this: my brother tells me you've refused all the food he's offered you. Is that true?"

She glances at the bowl. "Yes."

Zeus sighs, "Then you may go."

\-----

Hadyn watches as she stands up, pulls on the heavy gardening boots she wore when she came in. He skulks in the corner like slighted teenager, which Persephone supposes he is. It's laughable really. She wonders if he still sees her as the innocent girl she once was. She turns to find him leaning against the door, "Let me leave, Hadyn." She says, staring defiantly.

He heaves a sigh and shifts slightly. She nods her thanks and takes a deep breath before striding past him to the door. She's about to open it when he grabs her arm, spinning her to face him, deep blue eyes searching her face. "Let. Me. Go." He crashes their mouths together and it's messy and wet and _sweet_ but when he pulls away he's smirking.

"You taste like pomegranates." He says huskily, his eyes stray to the half empty bowl on the sideboard. 

_Shit._

\-----

Being Hadyn's queen is not as bad as she supposed.

She lives with him for half the year, the queen of the dark prince of Olympus city, she finds her dark side is easier to tap into than she would have thought. For the other half of the year she is with her mother, the flower girl, made of smiles and sunshine and flower petals but she finds herself waking in the night chilled to the bone more often and often. She finds herself missing the warm weight beside her in the night, the feel of deceptively soft dark hair between her fingers, the scent of blood and tears and gunpowder that hangs around the basement door, the thrill of power she gets when someone looks away and trembles at the sight of her. 

She thinks her mother knows but if she does she doesn't speak of it.


End file.
